“Looks like great minds think alike,” said Chase. “We need to talk to DeWitt.”
I tried to smile nicely, but when I glanced over at Chase I saw there was still a piece of straw in his hair. I combed a hand through my own, hoping he might copy the move on himself, but instead he only gave me a strange look. The gesture was not lost on Rocklin, who snorted, and said, “Kind of late to be cleaning stalls.”
I snatched the straw out of Chase’s hair.
“DeWitt,” I said. “Can you tell him we’re here? Please.”
“What makes you think he’s here?”
The door opened inward, and Rocklin stumbled backward, catching himself on the frame just before he fell.
“Because I am. What’s this about?” DeWitt appeared behind him. The room was dark but for a lantern resting on the table beside the radios, and the dim yellow light made his face appear gaunt, and the scars on his cheeks deeper.
None of the other techs were present.
“I … um…”
He didn’t look pleased to see us. It hadn’t occurred to me until just then that DeWitt might not hear me out.
“Sorry about the interruption, doctor,” said Rocklin.
“What are you doing here?” said DeWitt, stepping into the hall. A muscle in his neck bulged. At the harshness in his tone, my gaze dropped behind him to a picture leaning against the lantern. I’d seen it my first time here—the profile of a young girl with dirty blond hair, laughing.
DeWitt returned to the room and snatched the photo off the table. He stuffed it in his pocket and grabbed the lantern. Then he cut between us and headed toward the main foyer.
“Wait,” I said, racing to keep up. “We need to talk to you.”
“I’m busy,” snapped DeWitt. He glared over my head at Chase. “I don’t care who you are.”
A heavy feeling settled in the center of my chest—he must have heard something over the radio that had upset him. Another post had fallen. More of our people had been hurt. But if that was true, the other techs would have been called in.
“I have an idea,” I said quickly. “I know how we can wake the people up.”
He slowed. Stopped. Took a deep breath. “You’ve got one minute.”
I uncrumpled the Statute circular I’d smashed in my fist.
“Look familiar?” When he only grunted, I hurried on. “Everyone knows what the Statutes look like, but what if you could change what they said? If they looked the same, but said something different?” I scrambled for words, sensing his confusion. “Look, if someone changed the words on the flyers to something else—some kind of message—you could reach everyone. That message would be on the front of every business. Kids in school would read it. Half the houses in the country would have it posted on the front door.”
“Change the words of the Moral Statutes?” DeWitt asked. “To what?”
“To what’s really happening,” Chase said.
“You could hide the truth right in plain sight,” I said, thinking of the treason embedded in my mother’s magazines. “Write about the arrests and executions of the Article violators, and the abuse at reform school, and the brainwashing of soldiers, and what happened to the safe house.”
Chase grabbed my hand. His fingers locked between mine and squeezed, as if trying to hold me in place.
DeWitt mulled this over. I shoved the Statutes in front of Chase, feeling the plan grow wings inside of me.
“How often did you look at these—really look at them—when you were a soldier?” I asked.
He exhaled through his teeth. “Never. Not once, actually. In training we read from a handbook.”
“Exactly. They’re written for everyone else.” I pulled my hand free from his. “There would be no reason to fight the bases alone. Once the people see the story, they’ll fight with us. It could start a revolution, just like you said.”
DeWitt ran his knuckles down his cheek. “If it’s subtle enough, worked right into the text, the Bureau might not even notice,” he said. “It could be distributed halfway across the country before they caught on.”
“They’d deliver our message for us,” I said. “There’s still two weeks before the chief’s party in Charlotte. If we could get it done before then, we’d have a better chance of taking the base, right?”
Excitement, but also something dark and terrible, swelled inside of me. If this worked, the FBR would be irate. Their vengeance would not be pretty.
DeWitt was quiet for several seconds. The light from the lantern threw lopsided circles across the ground as he twisted his wrist.
He nodded slowly.
“So how do you propose we hijack the message into the Statutes?” he asked.
For the first time since we’d arrived, Chase’s mouth turned up in a slow, sly grin.
“We just so happen to know a couple of guys who might be able to help.”
AN hour later Chase and I were sitting around a foldout table in the cafeteria. The council was summoned, and had been arguing since DeWitt had introduced my plan. They all agreed that hijacking the Statutes was a good, although risky, idea, but disagreed on what exactly the text would say.
“You need to focus on what happened at the safe house,” said Ms. Rita, her hair hidden beneath a red scarf. “Go for sympathy, and then tell them the rallying point and time at the Charlotte base.”
Patch, the old man who led the fighters, scoffed, tapping his cane against the metal edge of the table. “And if the Blues get the message before the people? Our operation’s blown.” He shook his head. “No, you have to keep it vague. Speak in general terms.”
“Vague is not relatable,” said DeWitt. “We need the civilians who read this to have something to hold on to. This happened to my cousin, my neighbor, my father. This could happen to me.”
“Then you have to use names,” said Panda, absently running his fingers over the tattooed list on his opposite forearm. “Real stories, real names.”
Chase and I glanced at each other. There were too many stories to count, too many people already lost. How could you choose?
“That list would be a thousand miles long,” said Ms. Rita, speaking my thoughts.
There was a heap of Statutes on the table, and a pile of freshly sharpened pencils, but as of yet no one had taken any notes. I took one sheet and folded it in half. Then in half again. And again, and again, just to busy my hands.
“What about your friend with the spinal cord injury?” DeWitt turned to me; it was the first time since we’d arrived any of them had acknowledged us. “A girl who’s beaten mercilessly at the reform school, and then purposefully kept out of treatment so she could be used to scare other girls into complying with the Statutes.”
“Sweet God,” murmured Ms. Rita.
I scrunched the thickly folded paper in my fists below the table. Yes, it was a horrifying story, but the last thing I wanted was to exploit my friend. Besides, even if she said yes, Sean would never go for it.
Before I could answer, Van Pelt, the caretaker of the fields, the red-haired man who’d captured us in the orchard, spoke up.
“We don’t want this coming off as a sob story,” he said. “It needs to inspire.”
“Then you need a hero,” said Chase. They all turned to him, myself included. He straightened in his seat. “Someone people know and can look up to.”
“That’s you, doc.” Panda slapped DeWitt on the back.
Three’s leader rubbed his chin, lost in thought. “I’m hardly a hero. And I’m not sure my situation’s the most relatable anyway. Most civilians aren’t packing away refugees in their basement like we were.”
He was looking right at me.
I swallowed.
“Right,” I said. “The girl who was sent to reform school when her mom was arrested for noncompliance. Who escaped a Knoxville prison, joined the resistance, and supposedly became the sniper.”